Indian equities ended the week below 9,000 mark due to strong selling pressure witnessed across IT, consumer durable, oil & gas and metal stocks.

The 30-share index BSE Sensex, which opened with a loss of 25.06 points at 9,204.69, on Friday, rallied for a short time but profit booking at higher levels brought it back into the negative terrain.    

Among the sectoral indices, BSE Consumer durables and IT lost more than 4% each, Realty, Metal and Oil&gas declined over 3% each.   

BSE Midcap and Smallcap index lost 1.02% and 0.25% respectively.

Direct tax growth declined to 22.2 per cent, following the global financial crisis. Government collected Rs 1,77,251 crore as direct taxes between April to November this fiscal. The collection was Rs 1,45,053 crore till November last year. Low economic activities impacted the state revenue significantly as companies are facing low demand amid tight monetary policy and global slow demand. Tax growth witnessed 45% increase earlier this year while 29.5% growth a month ago.

The government has finally slashed the prices of petrol and diesel by Rs 5 and Rs 2 a liter, respectively. Revised prices would be effective from midnight. The step would help to control the inflation rate and increase demand in the economic system. However, the margin of oil marketing companies would decline just as it was starting to improve due to the decline in crude prices in the international market. OMC are likely to suffer a revenue loss of Rs.6,000 crore in the current fiscal due to the recent price revision.

The Calcutta High Court on Friday directed the superintendent of Presidency jail to provide a complete report on the medical condition of Todi report before Monday, when the bail appeal would be heard again.

Ashok Todi was admitted to the jail hospital since he was remanded to judicial custody by a city court on December 1 following his surrender on a Supreme Court directive.

The second largest exporter of IT services in India, Infosys Technologies has decided to stop the hiring process, following slump in demand due to the international financial crisis. It would employ more cost cutting measures to reduce expenses. Earlier, the software services giant had decided to recruit 25,000 people for its various projects.
 

India is all set to avail optimum use of the civil nuclear cooperation agreements with Russia, France and United States.  The country has already crossed the nuclear isolation era after necessary approvals from countries of nuclear supplier group. It can now import nuclear fuel and sophisticated technology from around the world for peaceful use of nuclear energy.